35. Knox
Chapter thirty-five
Ringing? Why is ringing happening? Salem has exhausted me in the best possible way. I am now in a state of awake yet still asleep. My hand blindly searches for the phone. Salem is sleeping on my other arm, using it as her personal pillow. The woman snuggles deeper into my chest as I struggle to find the phone. “Knox?” She mummers with her voice heavy with sleep. “Find the noise and kill it, please?”
I stifle a laugh but don’t respond, thinking I found it on the nightstand. However, the movement makes it slide onto the floor. I roll my sleepy mate onto her stomach, and she arches her back like a cat. It actually feels hard to pull away from her. Being bonded to someone is strange. It’s something that is going to take some getting used to. Feeling her emotions as if they were my own and not wanting to be an inch away from her is a complex feeling combination. I know it will take time before being away from each other isn’t physically painful. At least we have time before we have to test that out. I shake my head and lean down, grabbing the phone that has begun to ring once again as I grabbed it. Atticus.
“Yeah?” I say groggily, still trying to make sense of everything.
“Thank fuck! I need you. I wouldn’t ask unless it wasn’t dire. We have a situation, and I am out of ideas.”
That comment has me sitting up in bed quickly. I turn on the lamp to try to locate clothes. “What’s going on? Damn, I don’t have clothes.”
“Oh, I set some outside for you.” He says quickly.
My eyebrows raise at that. “How do you know–” I shake my head. “Nevermind. What’s going on?” I walk to the door, and when I open it, jeans and a shirt sit there. I know better than to question Atticus. The man seems to know everything. He probably stashed these out there a few hours ago.
Salem sits up, her hair hardly out of place, and rubs the sleep out of her eyes. “It’s Gage! Fuck! Leo, man, we are here to help.” You can hear voices in the background. Atticus lowers his voice into a whisper. “Please get here. Salem can teleport you. I can’t leave. I think Leo might kill Gage and not mean to. It’s like Leo isn’t Leo anymore.”
Salem’s hearing must be great because she quickly grabs clothes and throws them on. “Where are you at?”
“It’s like a block from your parents’ casino. I think Leo was going there, maybe to look for you. He keeps saying he needs help and that we don’t understand. We are at the park, and I am trying to keep the emotions down, but I’m losing steam fast.” Atticus is amazing at absorbing emotions into himself, but his tone has an edge. That makes me feel as if the situation has gotten worse than what he is describing. Atticus is powerful, so I can only imagine what kind of situation we will arrive in.
“We will be there as soon as we can.” I hang up the phone, sliding my jeans up and pulling the t-shirt that Atticus left me on.
She throws on the shirt, not bothering with a bra, and pulls on some yoga pants. Once she’s dressed, she says, “I need you to pull up the address and maybe a picture of the area so I can focus.” She bites her lip while waiting for me to pull the location up on my phone. I hand her the phone to show her where we are going. She looks up at me with a slight fear in her eyes.
“You can do this, babe.” So many questions and thoughts are running through my brain, but I don’t voice them.
“I hope so. I’ve been improving, but this is pretty far, and I don’t want to screw this up.” My hands cup her face, and I look into her beautiful eyes.
I pull her lips to mine and kiss her hard. “You can do this. I believe in you enough for both of us. If it takes two or three tries, that’s okay.” I hold the satellite image of the park up. She holds it between her hands, focusing on the details of the picture.
She takes a deep breath and nods her head. Salem puts my phone in my pocket and holds both of my hands. “Think of the place in your mind. I do not know if it will help, but with us being bonded, it can’t hurt.” So, I do as she instructs right away. The park that I played at hundreds of times as a child. I close my eyes and visualize it. When I feel the room spin and the grass tickle my toes, I know we are there.
I open my eyes and see the park. I feel so much pride when I look at Salem. “You did it.” I squeeze her hands in mine, wanting her to feel how grateful I am. “Damn, I am lucky.” I send her the thought and smirk when I see the blush on her cheeks.
The shouting snaps me back to the reality of what we are doing here. My gaze lands on three men that I love like brothers. The one I haven’t seen in years makes me nervous. Salem and I run hand in hand towards the screaming. Once we get there, all of their eyes snap towards us. Gage is bleeding and looks like he is in a great deal of pain. He winces before his face hardens once again. “You brought her here? Get her out of here! I don’t want her getting hurt!”
“I don’t want anyone here! Everyone leave, seriously!” Leo grits out the words. His jaw is tight. I study him and he looks so much different from what I imagined I would be seeing. He looks so much like Gage, but not. A jagged scar runs down his eye from his forehead into his cheek. The eye is slightly milky now in appearance. His gray right eye darts around as if he is looking for weaknesses. The two twins were always so different in personality, but now, they are also different in looks. Leo looks wild and dangerous. I can’t help but worry about how unhinged he might be. It would kill us all to put him down. I don’t know if Gage can survive it.
We always joked as kids that Gage absorbed all the happiness, and Leo got left with whatever was left. Now, looking at Leo, it looks like he is seconds away from snapping. His head tilts, and he studies me. “Knox?”
“Yeah, Leo, it’s me.” I still try to study him and find where my Leo is within this man before him.
“I got some intel that puts this guy in the casino. Nobody has to get hurt. I need to talk to him, though.” His hair is long and falls over his face. He pushes it out of his right eye onto the left side of his face. Leo’s frustration is visible as he practically growls, showing fangs, which makes me step backward. Leo wasn’t a vampire. What the fuck is happening? “You wouldn’t understand or even believe me. You all will believe whatever story our parents came up with.” He motions between him and Gage.
Gage holds up his hands in surrender. “Leo, I know they lied. I don’t know where you were or what happened to you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know or won’t believe you. Please, let us help.”
“Leo, I will have security pull the guy. We can have him delivered here. You have to calm down. We are all here to help.” Salem stiffens beside me, and when I look over at her, she closes her eyes and tilts her head.
“You don’t know what it was like for me. She was all I had! I need to find her. They want to send me to a different place because they think I’m crazy.” He sinks to his knees and looks up at the sky before screaming. “I’m not crazy! They think medications can help, but I only need her. She is the only thing that makes sense; they tell me she never existed. She has to exist! I can’t be here without her, and I won’t be without her!”
Salem moves, walking towards Leo. “Salem, what are you doing?” I practically hiss at her. Leo isn’t alright. I don’t know what he has been through, but he isn’t stable.
“I know what I am doing.” She doesn’t look at me, but I feel something in my chest. It’s not my emotion, but it feels like hope. Salem approaches him slowly, holding her hands above her chest, showing she has no weapons. “Who is she? Tell me.”
Leo tilts his head and clears his throat. “I don’t know!” He practically screams in anguish. “We couldn’t tell each other our names. We couldn’t use them. She is 295.” Tears stream down his face now. “She is real! Please believe me.”
Salem sinks to her knees as a sob breaks through her lips. “203?”
Leo flinches away, looking at her with a mixture of hope and fear on his face. “How do I know it’s you?” He shakes his head as if he doesn’t believe she is real. Whenever he looks back at her, his gaze begins to soften.
Salem scoots slightly closer, and he allows it. Both of them are on their knees before each other. She makes her right hand into a fist and knocks on his chest three times. Leo lets out a gasp that sounds slightly like a sob and a hiss. “It’s you. Fuck. You’re even more beautiful than I could have ever thought possible.”
His hands reach out to grab her, yet she pulls back and shakes her head. “Not until you return it.” Almost as if she needs proof for herself that he is her 203.
He nods, lifts his hand, and knocks four times in the air. Salem lets out a cry and launches herself at him. Part of me wants to growl because I don’t want him to think she is attacking him, but I think Salem could do anything to Leo, and he would take it. I relax as his arms wrap around her, and he holds her to him like he will never let her go. “There are so many versions of you in my head. None of them have come close.” She says as she lifts her hand to stroke his face. Leo sounds like he is hyperventilating, and Salem soothes him. She sits on the ground and adjusts herself so she is the one holding him. “Shh, focus on me and only me.”
Leo looks up at her like she is an angel. His savior is brought to life before his very eyes. “I thought you were dead.” He gasps out. “They wouldn’t help me. I tried to find you. Believe me when I say I tried to find you.”
Salem cradles his face to her chest and runs her fingers through his hair. I feel so much pride in her right now. My girl is so strong, and she found one of her missing pieces. This piece of her might be slightly broken, but she doesn’t see him as anything but perfect. “I tried, too. But you found me. We found each other. That’s all that matters.”
I motion to Atticus and Gage with my head to let them have this moment. They both deserve it. They have both been through hell. Atticus nods his head while Gage shakes his head. His jaw is tight, and he glares at me before gesturing to Salem and Leo. “What the fuck is happening? How can you be okay with this?”
“They lived beside each other, man. They are trauma-bonded. Give them a moment,” I tell him, not wanting to ruin this for Salem. “Take us back to her cabin. Salem will meet us there soon.”
Gage shakes his head. “No, how can you say that? She is your mate, and she isn’t safe. I will not sit here and let my brother hurt her.”
“Shut the fuck up. There is so much you don’t understand.” I growl in low tones, hoping Leo is too lost in Salem to pay attention to us.
Leo hisses again as he stands with Salem in his arms. He cradles her to his chest, looking at all of us. Salem tries to soothe him. “Leo, look at me, baby.”
Leo only shakes his head and holds Salem closer, hissing and showing us his fangs. “She is mine!” That is all that he shouts before he pulls her to his chest and runs away. They blur into the distance quickly, disappearing into the night and leaving me seething in anger at Gage.